The Confederate Flag

[Ryujin]

10% of a budget is not chicken-feed. Many businesses run at or under 10% profit margin, for example. Lose 10% of your budget, and the thing can collapse.

Of course, a government is not a business. So, consider what happens if you lose that 10% - it means either having to cut 10% of everything, or cut a lot more of some things, and not others. When you start talking about essential services, this can be highly problematic.

In fact losing 10% of a budget equates to a fairly radical rationalization of government spending, large increases in taxation, increased indebtedness, or a combination of the three. I suspect that one of the first things to go would be Quebec's universal child daycare programme for which the users pay a maximum daily rate of $20.00 for families with a combined income greater than CAN$155,000.00 ($7.30 per day for families with a total income less than CAN$50,000.00).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If Bullgrit ever returns to this thread, he will be confused as hell...

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, no. Racism comes from considering the other person has inferior. That started from the conquest. And even if it was our desire to free ourselves from our oppressors that was responsable for it, well, that still doesn't justify racism. Nothing does. You're just making excuses for racists and helping racism continue.


Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?465127-The-Confederate-Flag/page26#ixzz3ieDIbwfX

I really don't think you get the play the racism card.

In the past forty years, we've had about thirty years of Prime Ministers from Quebec - Mulroney, Trudeau and Chretien. If you want any federal job, you must speak French. I've never seen any data reporting difficulties of French Canadians attending university or any other education for that matter. Again, I've never seen any reports of French Canadians being targeted by police for special attention (well, other than during the FLQ crisis I suppose). Nor is being French Canadian any sort of an impediment to getting a job.

So, what racism? In what way are French Canadians being treated inferior to English Canadians? I'd say that the special treatment of Quebec is largely responsible for the negative reactions of the rest of Canada. You mention Manitoba and other provinces that receive considerable equalization payments - you do realise that people DO call them freeloaders right? That the Have provinces resent everyone for taking their tax dollars. Quebec isn't special here.

In what way is Quebec being oppressed? Your culture is strongly protected, far more than Aboriginal rights are and they DO have far more legitimate claims to oppression and racism. What oppression?

 

[Morrus]

If Bullgrit ever returns to this thread, he will be confused as hell...

He won't be returning.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, sorry, that took a left turn. Although the idea of racism and ethnic conflict is still there.

Rolling this back around. What is needed isn't reparations necessarily but reconciliation. How do the groups figure out how to come together and work past what happened in the past? And make sure that it isn't continuing in the present.

It's August, so, here in Japan, we're obviously talking a lot about the war and the bombs. But, it's a very different conversation. Not a pleasant one to be sure, but not really... hostile. For example, Truman's grandson is in Japan. One thing he gets asked about frequently is if he should apologise for what his grandfather did. His answer was pretty clear; what would be the point of apology? Would it resolve anything? Would it help? Better to spread information about the events, so that both sides can try to learn from the experience and move on. And, from the reaction from the Japanese people, that seems to be the right answer. It's not about blaming, it's about reconciling the viewpoints.

I wonder if that is a perspective that would make North-South relations in the States a lot more productive. Instead of blaming, or pointing fingers, accept that what happened did happen, and the try to move beyond those events.

Although, I suppose, the key difference here would be that racism in America is a very real and very current issue. Japan and the US going to war does have the benefit of a bit of historical distance to gain perspective. Then again, as this discussion with [MENTION=55961]goldomark[/MENTION] has highlighted, sometimes events in the past have a way of staying fresh in people's minds. Time does not heal all wounds without reconciliation.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, no. Racism comes from considering the other person has inferior.

Well, no. Racism *is* considering the other person inferior due to his or her race. It *comes from* human tribal patterns, and the fact that we can be grade-A jerks.

That started from the conquest. And even if it was our desire to free ourselves from our oppressors that was responsable for it, well, that still doesn't justify racism. Nothing does. You're just making excuses for racists and helping racism continue.

When I think of "oppression", I think of my grandfather fleeing his homeland because the Soviets were coming to throw him, personally, into a gulag.

When I think of racism, I think of measurable income inequality. I think of differences in rates of police action. I think of being given second-rate service, or denied service entirely, due to what the person is. I think of candidates on the stump insulting your entire people as criminals. I think of lack of representation in government and major business. I think of people assaulting you for what you are. I think of public figures who are supposed to be role models insulting your people. But, I'm in America, and those are the things we deal with. My idea of racism may not match yours.

What's happening in Quebec that makes you feel oppressed, or the subject of racism?

 

[Hussar]

Just to add a point about the hostility between have and have not provinces. [MENTION=55961]goldomark[/MENTION], there's another reason you don't see quite as open hostility towards, say, Eastern Canada or Manitoba as you do with Quebec. Those places aren't actively trying to break up the country every twenty years and then spending the next twenty years stirring the pot so we can spend another couple of years and hundreds of millions of dollars on yet another failed attempt to leave the country. Nor have those parts of Canada seen terrorists laying pipe bombs and murdering politicians. So, there is a bit of history there that does change how Quebec gets viewed. There is some residual hostility from that.

 

[Umbran]

You mention Manitoba and other provinces that receive considerable equalization payments - you do realise that people DO call them freeloaders right? That the Have provinces resent everyone for taking their tax dollars.

Which, as an aside, is pretty silly. Everyone puts money into a big pile, and then it gets doled out for various purposes. Even if every purpose is legitimate, what on Earth are the chances that everyone will be given back *exactly* what they put in? Nearly zero. Some folks will get more than they put in, some will get less. If you buy the concept of Federal funding for anything at all, this is the inevitable expectation you should have.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

...but it DOES get annoying when those receiving more in benefits than they pay in taxes complain that the national government is taking too much of their money,

 

[Hussar]

Which, as an aside, is pretty silly. Everyone puts money into a big pile, and then it gets doled out for various purposes. Even if every purpose is legitimate, what on Earth are the chances that everyone will be given back *exactly* what they put in? Nearly zero. Some folks will get more than they put in, some will get less. If you buy the concept of Federal funding for anything at all, this is the inevitable expectation you should have.

I'd point out that the US certainly doesn't do it. This isn't federal funding. This is equalisation payments. The federal money is given directly to the provinces and the province chooses where the money is spent. I'm not talking about the federal government building an army base somewhere, that's fair enough as that's a federal project. But, federal money goes to building provincially funded schools and programs purely at the discretion of the province.

Considering there are only three have provinces in Canada and seven have nots, and this has been true for at least the last forty years, it does build some resentment. My federal taxes go up to pay Nova Scotia fishermen to not fish because of moratoriums on certain kinds of fishing, for example. I understand the justification for it, and honestly, I agree with it. Being part of a society, particularly one with a strongly socialist bent like Canada, means that this is going to happen. It's 100% justfiable. But, that doesn't stop people from bitching about it.